Some countries starting to require digital passports - Not paper cards

[Red-Sol]

https://thepointsguy.com/news/prove-vaccination-status/

[njhorseman]

The article says "some countries", but only names one.

[Red-Sol]

10 minutes ago, njhorseman said:

The article says "some countries", but only names one.

I see that now which is very misleading but frankly wouldn't be at all surprised if there aren't more to follow.

[Turtles06]

1 hour ago, njhorseman said:

The article says "some countries", but only names one.

 

😂

Similarly, it also says this: "Turks and Caicos just became one of the first major vacation destinations for Americans to require digital proof of vaccination . . ."      

 

I was curious about how "major" a vacation destination Turks and Caicos is for Americans.  According to their 2019 stats, if I'm reading their report correctly, there were nearly 400,000 land-based visits by Americans, and about 951,000 by cruise ship.   Nationality-wise, for both land-based and cruise ship visitors, Americans were the overwhelming majority (82% and 86%, respectively).  If Americans can't satisfy the "digital proof of vaccine" requirement, that will really cut into their tourism.  Of course, the safety of their population is of utmost concern.

 

https://turksandcaicostourism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2019-Stats-Report-.pdf

[Yesimapirate]

The site linked in known click bait.   Not worth your time to read. 

[PelicanBill]

I can't see how they will implement this with hundreds arriving by plane at once or thousands arriving by cruise ship at once. You'd spend all day clearing people off the ship.  So you now have to require the airlines and cruise lines to handle that data and pass it with the manifest?  And the IDs? Normally countries trust that an airline or cruise line has verified identities with passports or birth certificates. And we have 54 different implementations of vaccine records here in the US. This is full of holes.

[jkrislc]

I read the article before it was posted here. Given that only NY and CA offer true digital vaccine passports, I don't see how they are going to be able to support their tourism industry with such a policy. Some suggestions I've read is to use pharmacy apps if you receive your vaccine at one of the nationwide pharmacies. Another article suggested uploading your information to the Clear app, but I'm unclear if that will be accepted.

 

Ironically, I live in California and had the digital vaccine passport on my phone when I had to have a medical procedure at a medical facility. Even with the digital vaccine proof, they still asked for the paper CDC card as it provided the lot numbers of the vaccine, which the digital vaccine passport does not provide. The digital version provides the dates of the doses and the manufacturer and my personal info (name and date), but nothing else. Perhaps if they had the authority to read the QR code, that would provide more information, but I don't see a foreign entity being given access to that information.

 

I think the only way this would work is if it were tied to a traditional travel passport, which isn't likely going to happen.